The Blissed Experience

This one started as one of those mornings. My absolute favorite weekend or vacation morning is to wake up leisurely with at least half-an-hour in bed to process my thoughts and dreams in quiet, followed by a long morning walk around the neighborhood. After that, a long, hot shower. Then the dessert--soy chai tea with the morning paper. (Do evening editions still exist?)

This isn't a guaranteed route to bliss, but it feels like four of any five blissful moments happen on days that start this way.

Today I noticed something that before seemed entirely random: I get inspired to write at a very particular length into my walk, on a very particular street.

I have four general walk routes, each with a bunch of minor variations. About thirty-five minutes into this morning's walk my mind catches the nuance and word choice of a particular tune's lyrics on the MP3. I'm inspired. I appreciate the lyricist's skill and art. A few moments later, I feel like a beam of flush white light has descended upon me. The Luzca stories I am sporadically devoted to flash before me. I can see myself going home to sketch one of the stories out. I glimpse a future where I spend nights writing it out, see it published and can imagine a girl somewhere reading the story.

It's hard to describe the feeling. Noting the flush white light sensation is a start, I suppose. It's joyously heady. A natural high. Reality seems more fluid. The illusion of time is washed away leaving only a clear sense of timeless eternity unfolding and unfolded all at the same time. Thrilling!

Imagine the book having a life of it's own. The words outline and then form its etheric body. It's breath, it's essence is an animated spirit. It's message is it's soul.

Such an entity crossed dimensions and merged with my body, soul and spirit. It felt like a tantric kiss. Oh, how it warmed my soul. Bliss.

Less dramatic moments of inspiration have occured five or six times on a walk. What stood out today was the realization that it happens on this particular route, on this particular street, but only when the direction I take on the route puts this street at the latter quarter and not the first quarter of my walk. Which made me wonder if it is bio-chemically induced. A walker's version of the runner's high.

An hour or so later, it happened again, but without the inspiration to write. I was outside on the kitchen deck sipping my tea in the spring sun reading the newspaper. Actually, it was the travel section. A write-up on Turks and Caicos islands. I've wanted to go there for a couple years. It's on my list. Perhaps being outside while reading about the island scene, the turquoise waters and the exquisitely detailed fresh-grilled fish eateries inspired the sensation. Again I felt transported into the land of bliss.

And that's when I got curious. Are other people having these experiences and keeping them to themselves? Am I just wired goofy? Something about the world makes me suspect it isn't normal to go in and out of heaven like that.

Funny thing, though. The next few days I felt like crap. And I have yet to turn that impassioned kiss from the muses into a single written word. Bliss without works...biblically ominous.

Time Enough

It has been an ongoing puzzle for me. On the one hand, I believe that we choose to incarnate on earth. I believe that we have goals, objectives, lessons and dreams and fantasies about what we will accomplish, how we'll manage to remember God, remember our heavenly home or superconsciousness if you prefer.

But then, my own personal experience of finding this whole time requirement a bit of a wet blanket, I can't fathom why everyone isn't working hard as heck to get whatever lessons earth holds and move on. Why come back if it can in any way be avoided? Everything takes so long in this place, this dimension, this time-space continuum. And boy do I mean continuum.

Today was the very first time I ever glimpsed the allure of earthly immortality. Guess I could have figured it out sooner if I read a little Anne Rice now and again. The thrill of acquiring and mastering all known knowledge.

AOL had some pictures from the Hubble telescope on their news site. Most of them I'd seen before, but I can never see them too often. They sparked all kinds of wonder. Again.

One talked about the evidence for anti-matter from the distored view of enveloped galaxies. Another showed a mass of gas that brought to mind a floating angel contemplating where to move a galaxy or nebula to make the scene just so, the pattern a more clear reflection of perfection. The wonder of imagination.

Every so often I buy books, calendars and magazines on astronomy. I went outside the other night to stare at the lunar eclipse. I don't own a telescope, so I brought out the binoculars for whatever they might add. I find the view of the universe fascinating. The structure is so obviously a macrocosm of our bodies.

If I had ten years to devote to learning astronomy, to unearthing and assembling all the knowledge we earthlings have currently accumulated on dark matter, wave frequency, color, star birth, star death and black holes, then I'd be able to come up with my own unified theory of the universe.

Why not me?

And then I'd take another ten to twenty years to study all the best epics, all the best nonfiction, all the best fantasy and I'd then be able to take four more to write the equivalent of Star Trek meets Carl Sagan's best with a new style that would have Shakespeare's spirit taking notes. Why not? Why not me?

Because I'm too busy taking seriously what the world holds out as necessary and important. I have a job that keeps me in my home, I take care of this home, I take time to enjoy my friends when I can. I'm busy mastering the mundane realities of living.

But if I had a couple hundred years to live, I could spend the first hundred years creating for myself the perfect home, storing up the perfect investments, cultivating the best techniques for sane living. Then I'd have a few hundred more to study astronomy, history, languages and then chemistry and geology too. Then I could really work on that unifed theory of everything. Heck, I wouldn't just be able to describe dark matter, maybe I could create some too.

Uh-oh. Maybe going straight through without a break perverts perspective.

People often suggest sleeping over a major decision. The perspective that is gained from taking a breather, walking away for a moment. Perspective.

I'll just enjoy these 87 years the way a child enjoys each day. Learn what I can, do what I can and be grateful for the whole lot of it.

Then go to sleep awhile, dream awhile. Reawake to a new day as if reborn. Reborn, but with all the knowledge gained from the days that came before.

Maybe it isn't about the unified theory of everything. Who would such a book be for anyway? And what would the knowledge offer to the experience of living, the process of growing.

I'll look into an astronomy class. A primer couldn't hurt. Why not?

Expectations

I went to the Tucson Gem Fair expecting to be awed. I was. It was exactly as I had imagine, but the experience was nothing like I'd expected.

The short version:
Though the trip spanned four days, I was only able to spend two of them shopping for gemstones. It was overwhelming. I didn't even make it into the convention center or the expo center to see the big dealers. I made it to more than a dozen of the nearly fifty shows, including several hotels that were set-up like mini-faires unto themselves.

I purchased just under ten pieces and found three of the five hard-to-find items I was seeking. Next time I'll plan a longer trip and set clearer goals. Turns out the fairs that swing through the Los Angeles area, while relatively tiny compared to the scale of the Tucson event, can probably meet nearly all my gem needs. As huge as the Tucson event was, it didn't offer a huge selection of the hard-to-find pieces.

The trip's greatest value was in helping me clarify what I am and am not. I'm not a buyer for gifts and I'm not a wholesaler (knew that one).

I'm also not a collector. I don't have the perspective of "collector" since I'm not looking at them in terms of their material value or unique physical attributes. I am only guessing, but I think the motivation of "collectors" is usually about owning the rare piece because of what it says about the collector's prowess, power or wealth.

Post-Tucson I'm clearer that my gems and I are about relationships. How we help each other on our mutual journeys. Those that belong to me will come to me. All the rest...I can still look and admire them for their unique qualities, their particular beauty and on and on, but ultimately, the universe does a fantastic job of bringing together that to which I belong and which belongs to me.

...

When I drove into Tuscon, I saw a string of outdoor shows off the freeway. It took several hours before I made my way over to the location, walking around. I'd bought a couple pieces and was just overwhelmed by the hundreds of booths I'd passed just in those couple of hours. Nearly in a stupor, I just let my glazed eyes land where they wanted, my feet moved as they pleased, dragging me along till my consciousness could catch up.

Amid all these crystals, I saw a flash of light. One of them caught the sun and seemed to wink at me. I walked directly to it. After looking it over, holding it a while, I knew it was one of the pieces I'd come all that way to take home.

It's a trans-channeling clear quartz with a surrounded crystal that grew into one of the faces. It reminds me of a diver jumping into the deep end. It looks like the smaller crystal was plunging into deep waters, diving directly through the primary facet. There's a bit of chlorite in it as well. It has a very powerful energy, a strong but supportive personality.

We resonate with each other. It seems impossible that the sun could have been anywhere else in the sky when I passed by, moving at any other speed, hitting her face at any other angle. How on earth did she manage to get me to walk directly to her? I passed tens of thousands of crystals that afternoon, maybe hundreds of thousands. That one, I was drawn to.

The proverbial eyes meeting across a crowded room.

And how did I know she was special. After I had her in my bag, I knew immediately that if I bought nothing else for the rest of the show, I'd have done what I needed to do on that trip.

The Winds of Change are Gusting

Years ago, decades really, my sister gave me an amethyst cluster. She was probably ten or eleven. I was twenty or twenty-one. There'd been a crafts fair at her school--an opportunity to let kids buy reasonably priced gifts for family and friends. That was my first crystal.

It has sat on a nightstand near me over the years. For the first eighteen years or so of having it, I didn't acknowledge it as much more than a cute gift from my little sis and a decorative little stone. Yet, meaningful enough that it has remained with me while so many other gifts and keepsakes, decorative or otherwise, have long since been lost or abandoned.

It's certainly not the only thing my sister has ever given me. It is, I now realize, the most treasured. I believe it was the first gift she bought for me autonomously and purely out of love. She didn't get it on a shopping with my mother. It wasn't my birthday. I can't be certain of the memory all these years later, but I believe I saw in her eyes and heard in her voice that it was straight from her heart to mine. And so it stays with me, moves with me.

That was my first. I had a brief phase, several years later, when I purchased a few small stones and carried them around after reading about their supposed healing properties. I was skeptical. I couldn't imagine how a little rock could do more than look good. Yet, I can't deny that there was a stunningly bright malachite I carried for several years. It was an odd love-hate relationship if I recall. I'd hold it in my hands when I drove and mostly kept in the car. Didn't like having it in my home, though.

I spent one summer in the early 90's in Guanajuato, Mexico. Supposedly I was studying Mexican Law and practicing my broken Spanish. In reality, I was almost always recovering from ingesting the wrong food or water. Interspered with attending classes were bouts of traveling, drinking and the usual antics of young American tourists.

When I came back, I visited a new buddy I'd met the summer before at a part-time job. That's a story worth telling sometime. It was after my first year of law school when I should have pursued something in the legal profession. Instead I found myself working at a home for pregnant teens and young mothers. I'm convinced it was the universe answering a prayer that included meeting this buddy. He soon became my closest friend.

One day after returning from Mexico, drinking tequila at his home, telling my tales,I heard a loud crash. Turned out my little blue paid-for Toyota Tercel hatchback was rear-ended by a hit-and-run driver. It was totalled. Finito. And I never saw the malachite again.

That experience with the car was the first time I was consciously aware of a major energy shift taking place in my life. I didn't call it "energy shift" then, but I knew it was related to leaving behind an old me to walk forward into a new life with new skin. I knew my mind, body and soul was ridding itself of stuff I didn't need any more--including my car. I had to find a new apartment that was near a bus route. When I moved in, my amethyst cluster took its place on the nightstand.

Had I not been carless, I'd have never met the Turkish girl whose name sounds like the car Hyundai. (I'm sure she spelled it differently.) We met on the bus we took to our different schools. Her car worked when it felt like it. Mostly it didn't feel like it. We exchanged numbers. One Friday night when her car was in the mood and I'd come home to what a poor student considers an unexpected windfall--a partial tuition refund check--we went out dancing all over Los Angeles. At the last club we visited, I walked in and stood next to the man who became my first husband in this lifetime.

My malachite was gone. My car was gone. I got a new place. Then a new friend. And shortly thereafter, a husband.

Eventually, though, we moved from that place. I lost touch with that friend. I'm still in touch with the sweet soul I married a long, long time ago, but I moved on from the marriage. The malachite was long gone.

The amethyst still sits near my bed.


Two years ago I received a clear quartz cluster and smokey quartz point from a friend. I'd made a comment about not being particularly satisfied with a change I was experiencing in my life. He scanned his rather immense collection of "rocks" and handed me those two.

That started a sequence of events that reaquainted me with my soul's affinity for the crystal kindgom. I believe the connection has both ancestral and past life roots. I can't even count the many crystals I now have in my home--citrine, rose quartz, moldavite, spessartine, apophyllites, barite, spheralite, apatite, angelite...wands, fadens, channeling crystals, spheres, clusters, record keepers. Not including the dozens of pocket pieces, there are at least fifty. Not to mention the collection of beaded stones from a jewelry-making kick.

Last night, I heard a whistling sound in the air. I got the distinct impression while meditating with the clear cluster a friend dubbed "mother" to the rest that our time was ending. She isn't the first stone to leave me. Several smaller ones have let me know they belong elsewhere. My 12/2/07 posting on Customary Giving is about one such incident. I've given them to family, friends, students and colleagues. I just never thought that "mother" and I would part.

I consider her an integral part of my now two-years-old foray into energy healing and accelerated personal growth. I guess I was spoiled by my first amethyst. She's still here and I can't imagine our parting. I never imagined "mother" would move on.

The message in the meditation was that "mother" had done her job with me. My home and my heart were now fully open to the mineral kingdom. I'd taken on Reiki attunements and allowed my physical body to join me as a partner on my spiritual journey. That seems to be her thing. Reminds me of a crystal version of John the Baptist. Hails the kingdom, then moves on taking her message elsewhere.

As most of you know, I'll soon attend a huge mineral and gem convention that practically takes over the city of Tuscon, Arizona. I can intuit that there are three specific crystals meeting me there. I know that "mother" is only leaving because another comes to pick up where she leaves off.

I'm not entirely sad to be losing her. I know it is just part of the process. Truly, it's a sign of progress that the universe no longer has to cause things to get lost or broken or "accidentally" slammed by a moving truck in order for me to let go of what no longer resonates with my spirit. I understand and I am certain that her leaving is to make room for the new additions which will facilitate the next phase in my growth. Yet, the sense of loss is still present.

To be honest, I'm delighted that I was forewarned of the upcoming change. It gives me time to appreciate her more before she tells me to whom she belongs next. I tried asking who she's going to next and the only message I got was to take her to school with me for a time and her next home will make itself known.

A friend was over last night and "mother" seemed to want to do one last healing. This morning I sat her outside on the deck to enjoy the rain and soak up the sun for the next few days. Eventually, I clear of personal programs and send her off so that she can fulfill her personal journey.

I started this entry yesterday, but got busy. Life. The universe. I tried to get back to it this morning, but couldn't seem to get around to it. I took a nap. When I woke up and saw how long I'd slept I was able to recognize that I was processing something. There was something going on I needed to settle into and own. The buddy, the personal angel, the best friend over the years in front of whose house my car was totalled has left the Los Angeles area. It's been months in the making...actually years. It was this morning that I opened the email that said he and his wife had made it successfully with their-packed up possessions to their new destination. They've been in the process for months. Today it is done.

I could try to convey all the things that make him so special to me, but they could only betray the depth of love by sounding superficial. I've spent the last few Thanksgivings at his home, going straight there after the one with my family if that gives any indication on the significance he and has wife hold in my life. I'll add this one, too. He and I went shopping for my first huge dictionary together. That was twelve years ago. Sounds trivial at first glance.

He recognized before I did how much I loved words. Imagine someone seeing you more clearly than you see yourself...and not being afraid to share the view. There was a period of years when we talked practically every morning on my way to work and then another hour or two each day on weekends and holidays. I'm not naturally a big fan of phone calls and can honestly say he is the ONLY person with whom I have such a phone relationship. Couldn't tell you what magic he used. Oh, yes I can. Every conversation was engaging, deep, metaphysically, intellectually challenging and often emotionally draining.

Now we talk much less often. With his involvement in moving and the changes I've been pursuing energetically, we sometimes communicate only by email for weeks at a time. I don't worry about him. He's got more than enough buddies to keep up his conversational needs.

It wasn't until after the nap that I understood the connection between "mother" and my buddy. Two pillars leaving. Two pillars whose pending absence confirm that I am ready for something new, something big, something destined.

Energetic shift indeed. The winds of change are blowing at a nice clip.

And just as with mother, there is an absence of sadness. It feels right. It is right. There is the standard ego-driven sense of "loss" that wants to be comforted, acknowledged. This blog is that effort to comfort my ego, to own, admit and share that change, no matter how necessary, how welcome, how positive for all involved, is still change. It deserves to be noted, appreciated, embraced.

And that's when I noticed the importance of that acknowledgement. The moment I allowed myself to embrace the loss, to feel the residual sadness, I became free to sit faithfully in the certainty that, in my life, change has always opened to better.

I wonder with great anticipation and curiousity what wondrous blessings requires this much cleared space. They must be wondrous blessings indeed!

Of course, I'll share them with you.

Delving into Her, Mother Earth

I had an amazing meditation yesterday. I felt myself dive right into earth, feel her and know her. (I detail which crystals were involved and the source of the meditation at the end--last two paragraphs.)

Southern California has just experienced a couple storms that brought lots of snow to surprisingly low levels in the nearby mountains. And, so Southern California, it was a perfect day to have the top down on the convertible to see the snow-capped mountains all the better as I drove around. Such a site is a rare treat here.

Their awe-inspiring beauty is probably the reason that during the meditation I was moved to try and place my consciousness within the mountains that are to the North of Los Angeles. And that started the incredible astral journey through the earth's inner planes.

I felt myself inside the cold inner core of the mountains, mixed in with the minerals, pressed within layers of rock and stone. With my affinity for the mineral kingdom's crystals and gems well-established, I found the experience refreshing. It was blissful to feel myself one with the mountain's guts.

From there I felt invited, perhaps called, not to stop with the mountains. My consciousness dove deep into the ocean. The spirit of a group of whales refered me to a few gems found on the ocean's floor, unique varieties still unknown to man. Their role as caretakers becomes clearer as I reflect on what was revealed to me in that visit. My astral floated alongside a few of them and then darted away to mingle with a colorful variety of fish. Imagine actually feeling the sensation of being thousands of feet below the ocean's surface, but without the pressure of the water's weight since you are there in consciousness only, your body comfortably above sea level in warm clothes in a warm home. Fascinating travels.

The best part of the ride though, was going to the earth's core. If you are inclined to think I'm crazy, you hardly need more proof, so I have no reason to fear telling you what I believe I experienced in placing my mind's eye there, my astal body right in the hot, molten center of this huge floating rock whose surface we crawl about upright, calling it earth.

There were beings there. They seemed to be about the business of tending to the earth's core fire. What was there job? I can't say. But whatever it was, they were enthusiastically busy being about it. They were huge if my perception was at all relative to my human perspective. If I were guessing, 10 - 20 ft seems right. I anticipate being thought a bit crazy by some. These being moved the way fire dances. Their shapes amorphous, but tall and lean. In fact, from a strictly visual perspective, they were nothing more than fire. But it was undeniable to me that they considered themselves to be working, to be engaged in some critical role that kees our planet alive.

Did that really happen?

I wonder what would happen if a skin cell from the top of a hand suddenly wonderd and then decided to wander about the larger world on which it was a part. Suppose this skin cell managed to find a way to "see" and "feel" to "travel" the body, it's earth. It communes with a liver cell, a blood cell, a stomach cell? What if she traveled in her mind's eye outside her humble plasma and sat herself, her limited consciousness, square inside the beating heart that pumped the river that it brought it's nourishment, a witness to the massive, powerful activity of rhythmic drumming.

When she returned to her "right" mind, her humble world, her plasma cell, would fellow cells believe her tale? Would they dare to imagine or conceive that such a thing exists? "Come now, we've heard of bones and some river of life that supports cells like us all over this massive moving being, but foolish child, you say you witnessed creatures of all types and purposes down in the core of this being which believed they had important jobs to do? Something that beats rhythmically with a power unimaginable to us?"

But since when can a skin cell shift her consciousness to the rest of the body? How could she possibly know what is happening anywhere else in the gigantic organism of which she is an infinitesimal and fleeting part?

Speaking of gigantic organisms...the earth does indeed have a heartbeat. A network of seismographs recorded the sounds of the planet sped up at a rate of 4 minutes equals 1 second. Check it out.



Anyway...that meditation was incredible. Every piece of our planet having it's own consciouness and purpose and open to being visited...and appreciated.

For readers who appreciate the influence of crystals, I was in a triangular grid of three Moqui Balls and had a small blue flourite double tetrahedron. I held the blue flourite under my tongue for several minutes at the beginning of the meditation and then sat it between my crossed legs during remainder of meditation.

The meditation is part of the 42-day program I've mentioned previously. That program comes from a book entitled Abundance Through Reiki (Paula Horan). Simplified, it is two sets of 21 day programs. Each set is comprised of repeating three times a seven day cycle of meditations attuned to each of the seven major chakras. I was in day 21, working on the crown chakra, "feeling fully how much (I) desire enlightenment; how much (I) want to become one with it."

Moving on

This weekend I learned from a close buddy that his brother died unexpectedly.
she said he complained of a chest pain
went for a bike ride
and the next thing she knew
she got a phone call from his girlfriend's son
that he was in the morgue
that she could not claim the body cuz she was not his wife
and some other stuff like that
she knew no details whatsoever

except that he was dead.......boom


And that started a round of reflections that combined with my 42-day meditation program to produce the following clarity. Rather than re-think and re-type, here's the gist from an email:

I'm able to be much clearer that I don't have a desire to grow old in Los Angeles area. I've talked about Pismo and the Caribbean for years now. And it has all just been blah-blah-blah someday and maybe. All talk, no commitment, no clarity, no certainty.

Alfred's passing combined with your moving up North and all the work I'm doing to get in touch with ME and egoless wanting and Heaven on Earth and believing that my grandest dreams can come true...it all adds up to something.

I get along just fine here. I've got an easy life. It's full of peace and freedom. And yet, there's better, there's more. I'm confronting, consciously and deliberately and persistently, residual doubts of being worthy of my wildest dreams and any guilt issues that would make me question daring to want the more and better.

Finally, I can just admit the undeniability of wanting more. Thanks to Alfred checking out 1-2-3, I'm reminded that it's all just fun and games anyway. We're in, we're out. While I'm in, why not live somewhere that makes my soul sing???

(the brother)left town his way...

Thanks again, for pointing the flashlight to the exit sign. "You don't have to hang around here" is what his exit says to me.

The Best

The news seemed to be filled with stories about the best tonight. A baseballer spoke about entering the Hall of Fame, or maybe not thanks to steroid use accusations. Hillary Clinton nearly cried trying to express that she is striving to become President, not just for the sake of politics but because she truly believes in her cause, because she believes she'd be best for the country. She really believes it. Right or wrong, it is in her heart.

I'm still thinking about wanting and not wanting. Watching all the stories helped me cognitively appreciate what motivates the successful at anything...a genuine belief that they are capable of being the best at their (a)vocation and a heartfelt desire to make it so.

I was reminded that I have always been similarly motivated. When I wrote my book, I believed I was able to make a uniquely important contribution to the education of parents in my state. Right or wrong, it was in my heart.

I make the same dish for nearly all the family get-togethers. I do it best, or so they still believe. My favorite jobs have always been those when I had the opportunity to let some special gift or talent shine. I love teaching for this reason. I love trying to explain something in a way that makes it impossible not to understand. The art of informing, challenging and inspiring. It's cool stuff.

There are certainly plenty of things for which being the best is a nonstarter. Best dancer...not gonna happen and I'm not motivated to try. I did shoot for best teacher, or at least the highest credentials they award. Not nearly as much fun as actually teaching, but I got it done. Shooting for best teacher ever, Teacher of the Year, or some such...not so motivated. I'm looking for a "best" that resonates with my heart, mind and soul.

I've decided to challenge myself to uncover how I desire to express My Best. To what objective would I be delighted to devote myself? It is the cure for my clear case of contentment.

I've got no answer today. The cure is being contemplated. I have a mesmerizing question capable of moving me closer to one of my resolutions...leaving 2008 even more fulfilled than I entered.